Sisterhood Rages On: Abigail Trafford writes with remarkable
eloquence and passion about her 45th class reunion at Bryn Mawr. Many of her classmates are Firsts and Onlys (the first or only woman in male-dominated fields) — and many broke social conventions as well as glass ceilings. And of course they’re still looking forward:

We’re likely to live two or more decades. A few may show up at our 70th reunion, and our 75th. What do we do with this unprecedented gift of time? There’s a sense of "Here we go again." We’ve already been through the civil rights movement and the women’s movement, and now we’re first up for the longevity movement.

We talk about what to let go of in our lives and how to move forward. We want to find the courage to do the things we’ve put off doing. To love more deeply. To leave the world a better place. We laugh together. We swap e-mail addresses and phone numbers. It’s good to be connected like this, good
to be a woman.

Title IX Celebrates 35th Anniversary: But as Juliette Terzieff reports for Women’s eNews reports, all is not quiet in courts and on campuses.

Lost in Translation: Also from Women’s eNews: "June was the month to encourage interest in books that have undergone translations, But a look at advocacy efforts shows foreign female authors trailing the lists of who’s considered a must for English translation." Anna Clark, who also writes about literature at her blog, Isak, looks at the reasons behind the gender gap and what some presses are doing to address it.

We Interrupt This Broadcast to Deliver the News: Jenn Pozner of Women in Media & News writes about Mika Brzezinski’s attempt to cover serious news on MSNBC instead of repeating the latest headlines about Paris Hilton. The reaction of Brzezinski’s male colleagues is worth noting.

Recognizing Rosie: During World War II, 6 million women went to work in American defense plants and government offices. Collectively they became known as Rosie the Riveter, writes Jeffrey Scott in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "celebrated in song, films and — most famously — a 1942 poster featuring a woman with her sleeve rolled up, bicep flexed, under the words: ‘We Can Do It!’"

Today those women, many of whom are now in their 70s and 80s, have a new mission: raising funds to build a Rosie the Riveter monument in Washington, D.C. Learn more about the American Rosie the Riveter Association, which is leading the fund-raising efforts. And if you’re near Richmond, Calif., you may want to visit the Rosie the Riveter Memorial Park at the site of the former Kaiser Shipyards.

The Real Margaret — Don’t Call Her Molly — Brown: The Denver Post puts to rest some myths about Margaret Tobin Brown, the Titanic survivor who was immortalized as the "Unsinkable Molly Brown" after the 1960s Broadway musical and 1964 movie by that name. Dick Kreck writes that the real story is even better: "Lost in the myth is the fact that she was a sought-after lecturer; was an early advocate for women’s suffrage; ran unsuccessfully for public office at a time when women couldn’t even vote; was a founding member of the Denver Woman’s Club, which helped women and children; was an avid supporter of Judge Ben Lindsey, who established the nation’s first juvenile court; and raised considerable sums to build a cathedral and hospital in Denver."

Support from Women is Big News: Wish I could tell you who wrote this column about Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls, but the Sun-Sentinel apparently doesn’t want you to know (I even e-mailed it to myself with the hope that the author’s name would appear). In  any case, here’s an excerpt:

I covered the women’s movement in the 1970s, and I can tell you that most women wouldn’t have voted for a woman president 30 years ago, even if you had paid them.

Ask Geraldine Ferraro. She ran for vice president with Walter Mondale in 1984 and they got creamed by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

I traded emails with Ferraro recently, and she’s backing Clinton, of course. But she seemed a little wistful about being ahead of her time on the national ticket. People said they were not just ready to vote for a woman then, among other issues.

But they apparently are now, a fact that should thrill every feminist. The women’s movement may not have passed the Equal Rights Amendment nationally or won equal pay for equal work. But it got women to take themselves and each other seriously, and not just professional women. (We always took ourselves seriously. That was the problem. Nobody else did.)

–Christine